Games of Fire (50 page)

Janice must have come to the same conclusion and from the way she dropped her gaze, she seemed to have forgotten Jackie was there and hadn’t intended to extend the invitation to the former wife.

Awwk-warrd.

Sophie got to her feet the same time Spencer did. He walked over and took her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured softly just to her. “This place holds too many bad memories that never go away.” The last part was said with a flick of his eyes in Janice’s direction.

Sophie didn’t chastise him over it. She really couldn’t fault him for feeling how he felt. His life had been torn out from beneath him by two women who mattered to him, but instead of packing up and moving on, both had stayed to taint his childhood home, the only place that had once held cherished memories. So was it wrong of him to be cold and bitter? It wasn’t even as though it had been years ago. There was no way a wound like that would heal so quickly.

She answered him by pressing her face into his chest. She felt the slight kick of his heart against her cheek before his arms wound around her. He kissed the top of her head.

“Well, we really hope you’ll come back and see us,” Janice was saying when Sophie focused again on the room. “It really was so wonderful to have met you.” Her brown eyes trained on Sophie, but she didn’t say anything.

The drive back to the hotel was a quiet one. Sophie rested her head on Spencer’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She must have dozed, because he was shaking her awake after what felt like five minutes but had to be longer, as they disappeared into the hotel’s underground garage. Her head was thick with sleep and she felt the strong urge to snap at someone for being disturbed. But she took Spencer’s hand when he offered it and let him guide her to their room. Once there, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, told her they would talk in the morning and left her to stumble into her room and fall into bed fully clothed.

Outside the door, a hand lifted and lightly caressed the gold plaque drilled into the white door. Dirty fingers traced the numbers the way they longed to caress
the soft, rosy cheeks of the girl inside.

Soon. Soon
!

The time for waiting was nearly at an end. He wouldn’t wait anymore. She was his and the sooner she realized it the better.

“It’s a threat!”

“I already made the call. There’s nothing else I can do right now!”

“He was here, Ben!”

Despite their touching attempts at being quiet, her parent’s low hissing woke Sophie the next morning. She rolled over and squinted blindly at the two silhouettes standing across the room beneath the window. Her shifting had the pair stiffening and jerking around to face her.

“What’s going on?” Sophie croaked, struggling to sit up.

“Nothing!” her mother said almost automatically.

“Mary!” her father chided his wife. “She has a right to know.”

“The police will handle the matter!” her mother protested.

“Will handle what matter? What’s going on?” Sophie was wide awake now.

“Something was left outside the door,” her father said, ignoring her mother’s low hiss. “They must have done it sometime
while we were sleeping, because it wasn’t here when we arrived.”

She climbed out of bed, a stupid decision when her knees wobbled dangerously. “They
… they know where we are?” Her mouth filled with ashes and copper. “You phoned the police?” Another more frightening thought struck her hard. “Where’s Spencer and Jackie? Have you told them?”

Her father shook his head. “We wanted to talk to you first. And yes, we phoned the police. They’re on their way.”

“How did they find us?” she exploded, feeling her nerves unfurling. “How … ? What … ?”

“Sophie.” Her mother rushed forward and engulfed her in familiar arms. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out.”

But Sophie was shaking so hard, her mother had to tighten her grip when she began to slip, her legs no longer able to maintain strength. Bile rose hot and sour, filling her mouth until the taste of it trickled from her senses. She fought not to cover her mother in it.

“I told you we shouldn’t have told her!” her mother
hissed to her father sharply.

“How did they find us?” Sophie said again, needing an answer to that very important question. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to tell the police,” her father said reasonably. “Then we’re going to decide from there, but in the meantime, we need to stay calm!”

Logical. It was all logical. One step at a time. Had to remain calm. Phone the police. Calm. Calm.

“Sophie, breathe!” Her mother shoved her on the bed and forced Sophie’s head between her knees. “This is why I didn’t want to tell her!”

“We can’t hide this from her!”

“Wha … what did they leave?” Sophie interrupted, bolting her nerves down. “What was it?”

Carefully, as if the object was a bomb, her father lifted something off the table and held it up for Sophie to see.

It was in a Ziploc bag, sealed and safely stowed away. At first glance, it looked like a piece of paper, but she looked harder and the item came into focus.

“They left a card?”

A Christmas card, to be exact, with a big, red flower on the front and loopy, gold letters that wished the holder a Happy Holidays stamped across the center. The inside was blank except for four words.

See you soon, Sophie.

It was scribbled in blocky letters just short of crude, but the promise behind them was scrawled in blood. They boiled with a poison so beyond sanity, it carved into her very soul with a pen of ice. It dripped into the recesses of her being with malice. It burned and oozed. The distance between her bed and the bathroom became infinite; miles of endless space choked with jagged wires of steel. She barely made it to the porcelain bowl before Janice’s delicious chili made a reappearance.

Her mother was there, pulling back Sophie’s hair and rubbing her back. She was saying something in soothing murmurs that was as mindless as the need to breathe. Suffocation was a welcoming bliss compared to the endless torment barricading her senses. It made no sense how she could still be alive when everything inside her was dead with terror.

A cold glass of water was pressed into her shaky hand. She took it, dribbled half its contents down her front, but managed to take several greedy sips. She rinsed her mouth and gulped the rest. Her mother was still next to her, soothingly pressing a damp cloth to Sophie’s burning brow.

“It’ll be okay,” her mother promised. “Your father and I will work things out. We’ll fix this.”

“How did they find us?” Sophie croaked, sickness melting into tears. “How did they know where we were?”

Her mother shushed her gently, pulling Sophie into her arms. “It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. There was someone out there terrorizing her, wanting something from her and she didn’t know why. She was completely powerless to stop them or even fight back when she didn’t know what she was fighting. Everything around her was closing in, crushing her bones and compressing her into something small and defenseless. She felt the slap of shame burning on her cheeks, mixing with the hot path of tears.

“What do they want?”

Without answers to give, her mother resorted to softly shushing her while rocking her the way she used to when Sophie was small. And Sophie let herself be rocked and coddled. She let her mother protect her from the evils of the world. It was becoming apparent very quickly that the bogeyman no longer resided beneath her bed or in her closet, but had stepped into the world beyond the dark. It had stepped into her world where it could frighten her whenever it pleased.

With the careful hands of a mother, her mother undressed her and helped her into the tub. She filled it just the way Sophie liked it,
a few degrees short of scalding and left her to soak, promising to check on her soon. But the moment the door closed behind her, Sophie sunk to the bottom, letting the pressure trap her. The absolute denial of all her senses calmed the havoc demons marching through her with pitchforks.

The police were at the door when she emerged wrapped in a bathrobe. It was the same two officers as the day before. They sat at the table, their notebooks open in front of them. Her mother sat in the chair opposite them, while her father pace
d by the window. Jackie was there and …

“Spencer!”

He was sitting at the foot of her bed. He leapt up when she walked into the room. In three quick strides, he pulled her into his arms.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, fisting the back of his shirt and pressing her face into his chest. She closed her eyes against the flood of tears threatening to destroy her.

As if sensing the thin ice separating her from the dark abyss threatening to pull her under, Spencer smoothed back her hair and kissed her brow. “It’s okay, baby.”

“They found us, Spencer,” she whispered into the soft material of his shirt. “They found us!”

“I know,” he murmured.

“How?” her voice broke, coming out sharp and high pitched.

“Shh.” He tucked his finger beneath her chin and tipped up her face. “Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. She didn’t think she’d ever be hungry again. Her stomach hurt just thinking about it.

He took her to the spot he’d been occupying and gingerly nudged her down. He kept a firm arm around her as they listened to the police officers file the report.

“We’re going to take this in as evidence,” the taller of the two said, holding up the card. “We’re also going to see if we can’t get surveillance videos from the hotel cameras. We might be able to identify him that way. In the meantime, is there anywhere you can send—” He checked his notes. “—Sophia? Just for a little while?”

Her parents looked at her. Spencer’s arms tightened around her as if he were trying to mash her into him and keep her there.

“Yeah,” he said before anyone else could answer. “My dad’s house. They won’t find her there.”

“What?” Sophie pulled away to look at him. “I can’t go there. What if they follow? What if they find me? They won’t be safe. And what about my parents and you and your mom?”

“But they want you!” Spencer stressed. “They can’t have you if they can’t find you.”

“I won’t leave you guys behind to save my own neck!”

Spencer glowered at her. “Well seeing as how I’m pretty fond of your neck, what with it keeping your head in place and all, I’m not willing to risk anything happening to you! My dad won’t care. He’ll take all of you in.”

“But you won’t go.”

“I can’t. I have to stay with my mom.”

Sophie folded her arms. “Then I’m not going.”

He growled, baring his teeth. “Why do you have to be so frustrating?”

She opened her mouth to respond when the second officer piped in. “They specifically asked for you,” he told Sophie. “It might be best if you were taken somewhere safe.”

Sophie frowned. “But where? They found us here and no one knew where I was. What’s to say they won’t find me again?”

“You
must have told someone who told someone. It only takes one person to talk to the wrong person, or even if they’re overheard. You need to disconnect from everything for a little while,” the taller one said. “No Facebook or Twitter. No emailing or texting your friends. Just drop completely off the grid until this guy is caught. We have to assume that nothing is safe right now, that everything you’re doing is being monitored somehow. For all we know, this person could be someone close to you, a friend or family member. Someone that is always in the loop.”

“That’s why my dad’s place will work,” Spencer jumped in. “No one knows where it is.”

“What about everyone else?” Sophie said, feeling like they were going around in circles. “Your dad can’t house all of us.”

“He doesn’t need to.” He gripped her hand hard. “He only needs to take you.”

She snatched her hand away. “Forget it.”

“Spencer’s right,” her father interjected before Spencer could throttle her. “You’re the one they want.” He glanced at her mother, then Jackie. “We need a new plan.”